Always Growing

I must admit that I find each of my kids the most beautiful kids in the world. Sometimes it is hard to believe that they are as big as they are.

Joey still makes his way into our bed sometime in the middle of the night. Since there is not enough room to comfortably fit us all, we put him down at the foot of the bed. It amazes me to notice that his feet reach all the way to our hips. He started sleeping in our bed when he was two, and I can still remember how small he was. He is showing good reasoning skills and is learning to put letter sounds together to make words. He is also starting to recognize rhyming words. He is looking forward to going to school next year, and excited to get a backpack. My heart starts panicking when I think about him going to school. I don't know if I can handle the separation. But he is such a social child; he's always talking about his "friends". The sad thing is, he doesn't really have any friends. He plays well with the kids at church, but he only sees them for the time that we are at church...its not like he has anybody to come over for play dates. So I suppose I will have to be strong when it comes time to taking him to school.

Nick seems to get cuter every day. He's the one that keeps me laughing. There are times that Nick and I have to turn our heads away to laugh when we want him to believe we're serious. He still is not talking like he should. He has a few more words that he says, and he is always willing to make an attempt if Joey asks him to say something. But he is usually very clear about what he wants, and if you ask him the right question, he will let you know if you are right or wrong. He loves to sit on the potty like a big boy, but he hasn't yet gone while sitting there. Soon we are going to spend a weekend of intense concentration on the potty training thing and see how it takes. I would love to see him potty trained by the end of the year.

Ethan is already almost two months old! I always forget how fast the time flies for the first year. There is always some sort of milestone that you are looking for during the first year that makes the time go so fast. He has a doctor's appointment scheduled for a week from Friday, so I will know then how much he has grown. We have just moved him to the next size up in clothing. Although the 3-6 month size is still a little big, the 0-3 month size was getting too small. He enjoys spending time on the floor, as long as he is on his back. He will coo and smile while kicking his little legs and waving his little arms. He doesn't stop moving while he is awake. But he has done an excellent job sleeping this last week. Since last Monday night, he has only gotten up one time! He will go down sometime between 10:30pm and 11:30pm and he hasn't gotten up before 4:45am all week. Last night was the best. He was asleep in my arms by 11:30pm, but I didn't get to lay him down until midnight. He did not get up until 6:40am! He's such a good boy.

I got my new glasses last Thursday. My old glasses were five years old....so the prescription was quite different. I am getting use to the new prescription, but for the first couple days it felt like I was walking through the ground because it looked like the ground level was up by my knees. I spent quite a bit of time high-stepping it because it looked like I needed to take a step up or I would trip. Of course, the mental image of what I must have looked like to other people kept me laughing at myself. Its times like those that I miss my mom and sisters. I know they would have been laughing at me, too.

Nick is very busy at work. He has been without a technician for almost a month, so he has had to do all the work in the warehouse as well as doing all the stops. He hasn't been home on time for awhile. He has to try to get his office work done as well, so he is stressed and overworked. He has hired somebody from the Olympia, Washington branch who is dumb enough to want to move to Alaska. But he won't be up here until November 10th. So he still has a month left of having to do all the work. In fact, he has to go to Homer on Wednesday, so he will be staying overnight in Kenai because the drive is too far for a single day. This will be my first night by myself since Ethan was born. Hopefully, he will continue to sleep as well as he has.

Nick and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary on Sunday. It is hard to imagine it has been six years! The time has gone so fast. But I suppose it would seem to go fast when we've had three kids in six years. We didn't really do much on Sunday for our anniversary, but if we can find a babysitter, we plan on going out to dinner, maybe even a movie. It depends on who we get to babysit and whether or not we bring Ethan. We will probably go to the Outback because we were given a $50 gift card by a lady at Nick's work as a "Thank You" for the baby clothes and Pack 'N Play we gave to her daughter who has very little.

The boys have finished their breakfast so it is time to get them dressed and ready for the day. I hope everyone has an enjoyable week.